


toward eternity

by 100demons



Category: Shingeki no Kyojin | Attack on Titan
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Female Character of Color, Gen, Implied/Referenced Rape/Non-con, Sexism
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-08-14
Updated: 2013-08-14
Packaged: 2017-12-23 10:50:16
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,781
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/925495
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/100demons/pseuds/100demons
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Instead of Eren Jaeger, Mikasa meets Levi.</p>
            </blockquote>





	toward eternity

**Author's Note:**

> snk kink meme prompt:
> 
> AU in which Eren never rescued Mikasa from her kidnappers, and she ends up being sold to the underground slavery/prostitution ring. At some point, she crosses paths with Levi (who isn't notorious yet but getting there). He recognizes her potential and takes her under his wing to train her in fighting/martial arts/general thuggery. Together, they ruthlessly rise to the top.

Since then 'tis centuries, and yet each  
Feels shorter than the day  
I first surmised the horses' heads  
Were toward eternity.

 _Because I could not stop for Death_  
Emily Dickinson

 

* * *

 

The smell of hash hung thickly in the air, leaving a sharp and almost bitter taste in Levi’s mouth. Cheap silk hangings, woolly cushions bearing more resemblance to sheep than furniture, rugs stained with piss and rancid beer–– Levi’s lip curled in revulsion.

“The girls are just this way, sir.”

The proprietor gave him an oily smile, teeth yellowed by years of chewing tobacco. “Whatever your needs, I assure you, we’ll be able to meet them.”

“Oh?”

The proprietor mistook his bland response for curiosity. “We pride ourselves on our confidentiality,” he said, bobbing his turbaned head so that the dull yellow feather stuck in the side twitched and spasmed like a dying worm.

Levi briefly indulged in imagining what the old man would look like with half his teeth out on the floor and his blood painting the soles of Levi’s boots. The rustle of beads brought him back to reality and a room that stunk of sweat and cloying incense, beautiful girls arrayed on the floor like fluttering blossoms.

“Anything that suits your fancy, eh?”

Each girl met his gaze with dull eyes, smiling flirtatiously behind their gauzy veils, fingers contorted into what he supposed were meant to be seductive gestures. Blondes, brunettes, redheads. Short, fat, thin. Their differences blurred together into one droopy expression, stoned out of their sanity, legs spread open to welcome all. A knife to the throat would be a mercy.

“Where is she?”

The old man froze, hands clasped together on his massive belly. “Sir?”

“They said you had one of them,” Levi said through gritted teeth.

“She’s not feeling well tonight, you see,” the old man said hastily. “But we have many, much more beautiful ones. She’s only a scrap of a thing, not worth much to look at.”

Levi looked straight in the other man’s beady little eyes. “I want to see her.”

Sweat trickled down the old man’s face. “Right this way,” he croaked and hurried out of the room much more quickly than Levi had expected for a man of his size. Levi followed, leaving behind the smoke and sightless gazes.

The old man scurried through a labyrinth of cramped passageways, lit only by the occasional torchlight; Levi memorized every turn, noting the way the ground subtly sloped underneath his feet. They were going underground. Finally, after the twenty third turn, the old man stopped and fished out a ring of keys from his belt, his gasping breath and the jangling keys the only noise in the dank air.

“Her room,” he puffed out, leaning against the door for support.

A weak, pathetic piece of shit. Levi wiped his palms on his silk trousers; the old bastard made him feel dirty just with his greasy presence. Levi inclined his head in affirmation and the old man unlocked the door.

The door creaked open on rusty hinges and Levi waited until the old man entered first before shutting the door behind him. It was the smell that hit him first––old piss and shit, mixed with dried blood. Levi swallowed a rising gag and stepped over an overturned chamberpot, careful not to dirty his boots.

“She’s not well,” the old man said sullenly and pointed at the lump curled up on the wooden cot. Half-naked, in the dim lamplight Levi could see the dark blue bruises patterned around her neck, the yellow splotches marring her shoulderblades. Her hair was lank and greasy, matted with blood.

“Did you make her ‘sick’?”

“Won’t listen, won’t move from the bed. All she does is lie in bed and cry. A useless girl, I wasted two hundred and fifty gold crowns on this filthy cunt.” The old man spat on the ground. “Two hundred and fifty!”

Gently, Levi leaned over and brushed aside the sheets over her right arm. He was close enough to see the movement in her eyes, the crack of dim awareness watching his every move. She offered no resistance as he tugged on her arm and turned it over.

The black lines were stark against her pale skin, folding into a many-petaled flower that curled in on itself, blossoms entwined with a long, twisting stem.

“You’ll have to pay for her,” the old man said, hovering over his shoulder like a buzzard.

“Shut up,” Levi said and stepped on the man’s foot, pressing hard enough that he broke bone. He ignored the resulting scream of pain and turned his attention back to the girl.

“What is your name?”

She made no response, just watched him with those dead eyes.

“You fucking shitface,” the old man howled, clutching at his foot. “I’m gonna fucking kill--”

Levi turned around and slammed his fist into the old man’s solar plexus, enjoying the way the soft flesh caved at his touch. “Don’t make me repeat myself.”

The front of the old man’s trousers darkened, and a trail of urine trickled down a leg and onto the stone floor.

Levi wiped his hand with a handkerchief and tucked it back into his pocket. The girl was much more awake now, watching him with a mix of fear and resignation. He sat down on the edge of her bed, to give her some space.

“Do you know who I am?”

The girl shook her head a fraction.

“I am Levi.” Wordlessly, he unbuttoned the cuff of his right sleeve and rolled it up to his elbow. A flower with broad leaves bloomed in the crook of his elbow, the tips of its petals as ragged as the edge of a saw. “Of Clan Yamamoto.”

The girls eye’s widened.

“My father’s mother escaped into the walls nearly a hundred years ago. She was, what these ignorant pigs––” Levi jerked his head at the old man, who sat on the floor, white-faced and pale, “––call Oriental.”

The girl wet her cracked lips with her tongue. When she spoke, her voice sounded as dry as sandpaper. “I am Mikasa,” she said. “Of Clan Ohno.”

“Well met, Mikasa of Ohno.” Levi tugged his sleeve back down and buttoned the cuff back up. He carefully avoided meeting her eyes, instead paying exquisite attention at his lap.

“Well...met,” Mikasa said in voice so faint that Levi had to strain to hear it. “Levi of Clan Yamamoto.”

“The world behind the Walls is not kind to people like us,” Levi said. “My father used to tell me stories of an entire land filled with people that looked like us. Of course, many perished in the wars, and even fewer found safety after the Titans arrived. Safety being a relative word.” His gaze flicked over at her mottled bruises, the dried piss on her sheets.

“My grandmother was raped, which was how she came to have my father.”

“How did she die?”

Levi gave Mikasa a cool look. “The slavers came for her when my father was ten. She bit her tongue and died before they could take her away.”

She returned his gaze steadily, as if searching for something in his eyes. “They killed my Mama and Papa,” she said after a long silence.

“I know,” Levi said. “I’ve been looking for you for a long time, Mikasa of Ohno.”

“Are you here to save me?” A harsh, rattling breath marred the hopeful lilt in her voice.

Levi shook his head. “I can take you away from here, but only you can save yourself.”

“What...do you...mean?”

Levi palmed a knife and threw it, the hilt quivering in the wall just inches away from the old man’s ear. The man gasped and whimpered in fear.

“I can kill him,” Levi said simply. “But that doesn’t mean I can save you, Mikasa of Ohno.” He reached out, shifting forward on the bed until he could touch the chrysanthemum branded onto her wrist. “Do you want to live?”

Mikasa’s dark eyes bored into his. Levi waited for one, two, three seconds before her head shifted a fraction. “Yes.”

Levi drew back to his seat and watched as she struggled to sit up, listened to her pant and clutch at the sheets as she forced herself upright, blood and smeared shit sticking the linen to her skin.

“You––you can’t do that!”

Levi ignored him but Mikasa’s head snapped towards the old man on the ground, her eyes awake and blazing.

“Shut....up,” she bit off, the effort causing her shoulders to shake.

“But––she’s mine! I paid for her!”

Levi tilted his head, annoyed by the hysterical high pitch the old man’s voice was acquiring. Pathetic.

“Either you be quiet or I kill you. How does that sound?”

“But––”

Levi stood up in one smooth motion and kicked him in the ribs, bone crunching under his steel-tipped toe. Another kick to the throat and to his crotch. The man moaned and spat blood onto the floor, a fresh red that colored the stone floor a shiny purple. Levi advanced with a dagger from his boot and bent down.

“Wait.”

He looked up and saw Mikasa’s eyes focusing on the knife in his grip.

“I––I want to do it.”

Levi’s brow rose. “Are you sure?”

She hesitated for a moment before nodding. “Yes,” she said, her voice growing stronger. “Yes, I’m sure.”

He rose without a pause and strode over to the bed, slowly handing her the knife. Her thin, brittle fingers clasped over the hilt tightly, knuckles whitening.

“Do you need help standing?”

She nodded again and he lent her an arm; the sheet fell off her completely as she stood up, but neither of them paid much attention to her nakedness. Levi clinically noted the hollows in her cheeks, the way her ribs stuck out and the florid bruises coloring her body, and steadied his grip on her left arm. Mikasa walked slowly, her steps weak but sure.

She knelt at the old man’s side, watching the rise and fall of his chest for a long moment. The turban he had proudly worn lay on the ground, feather broken in two.

“Is it hard?”

“Killing?”

“No, living after. After all this.”

Levi considered her question. “Yes,” he said. “Every day is a struggle, every breath a fight. But I live, I live because dying is what they want and I refuse to give into that. I can’t spit in their faces if I’m buried six feet under.”

Mikasa raised her fist. “That’s enough,” she said and plunged it straight into his heart, blood welling up and coating her fist a lurid red.


End file.
